Jenny Daviet

Jenny Daviet is an absolutely outstanding Mélisande, both sensitive and very strong, and sings beautifully. DAGENS NYHETER

With her convincing stage presence, exceptional musicality and versatile repertoire, French soprano Jenny Daviet has made a name for herself both on the opera stage and in the concert hall. She was unanimously praised for her interpretation of Messiaen’s Poèmes pour Mi with Kent Nagano and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, which was released on CD. A recent DVD production documents another highlight of her career to date: she sang the title role in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande in Benjamin Lazar’s new production at the Malmö Opera under the musical direction of Maxime Pascal.

In the 2024/25 season Jenny Daviet will also be performing a wide range of repertoire. In August, she will start the season at the Ravel Festival together with the Ensemble intercontemporain under Pierre Bleuse with Into the Little Hill; just last season, she successfully interpreted George Benjamin’s chamber opera at the Théâtre de Caen and also performed his work A Mind of Winter with the Orchestre de Caen. Mozart is planned twice in the current season: In Fribourg, she will sing the Mass in C minor, and in April she will be on stage as Despina in Così fan tutte alongside Thomas Hampson, who will also direct the semi-staged production with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal under Rafael Payare. Prior to this, Jenny Daviet will appear on stage in Giorgio Battistelli’s opera 7 Minuti at the Opéra de Lyon in March.

A highlight of last season was another major music theatre project: as Eva in Stockhausen’s Sonntag from the cycle Licht, she could be heard at the Philharmonie de Paris together with his ensemble Le Balcon under Maxime Pascal, having already participated in the performance of the Licht cycle’s Freitag in 2022. In 2023 Jenny Daviet gave her Asian debut as Pamina in Mozart’s Magic Flute, which was performed at the National Taichung Theater in a production by William Kentridge. In 2023 she was also scheduled to debut as Nadja in Haas’ Bluthaus at the Opéra de Lyon. Other recent operatic highlights include Héro in Berlioz’ Béatrice et Bénédict at the Cologne Opera under François-Xavier Roth, George Benjamin’s Into the Little Hill at the Teatro del Canal in Madrid in collaboration with the Teatro Real, Léna in Saint-Saëns’ La princesse jaune and Mélisande in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande with the orchestra Les Siècles. She also appeared as Angélique in Hervé’s Les Chevaliers de la table ronde at the Opéra Grand Avignon, in the world premiere of Fernando Fiszbein’s El hombre que amaba a los peros at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and in the role of Countess de la Roche in Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten at the Cologne Opera.

In 2022 Jenny Daviet sang Ligeti’s Requiem for the first time with the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España under David Afkham. Recent concerts also include performances with Thomas Hengelbrock and his Balthasar Neumann Choir and Ensemble at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival with Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem and with Claire Gibault and the Paris Mozart Orchestra with Mozart’s Mass in C minor. She sang Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire at the Opéra de Rouen, Vivier’s Bouchara at the Cologne Philharmonie, and Fauré’s Requiem at the International Rostropovich Festival in Moscow under Kazuki Hamada. A focus of her chamber music work with pianist Alphonse Cemin is the German and French repertoire of the turn of the century; most recently, however, the duo performed music by Messiaen at the Théâtre Athénée.

Jenny Daviet began her musical education as a pianist before joining the Conservatoire Regional Influence de Paris, where she studied under the mentorship of Laurence Equilbey, and commenced her soprano career as a member of the ensemble at the Opéra de Rouen, where she made her debut in numerous roles, including Blonde (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Serpetta (La finta giardiniera), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Second Lady (Dido and Aeneas) and Micaëla (Carmen).

2024/25 season

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